![]() The new Aldis will also create around 2,400 jobs.ĭespite being the fourth biggest grocery chain in the UK, the German-owned supermarket is underrepresented in London apparently owing to a lack of suitable sites. It’s still on the hunt for new locations to host the stores: Aldi is even offering a finders fee of 1.5 percent of a freehold price or 10 percent of the first year’s rent for leasehold site to people who can recommend a previously unknown location.īen Shotter, regional managing director at Aldi, said: ‘We strongly believe that access to affordable, high-quality food is a right, not a privilege. Huzzah!Īnd these aren’t going to be diddy Aldis – the plan is to open stores that are the standard 20,000 sq ft with 100 dedicated parking spaces. But in some very good news, Aldi has plans to open AT LEAST 60 new stores in London, hoping to double its offering in the capital. Food shopping in the capital is a pain: more often than not, we’re forced to cobble together our groceries from subpar Tesco Metros, cornershops and astronomical organic delis. ![]() Roll on Viagra for the authorial brain.There aren’t many things that excite Londoners more than a Big Supermarket. But somehow, Jeffrey, I think that not even that will work. Is there any way the sixtysomething can keep his place at the top of bestsellerdom's slippery pole? Well, I suppose you could try getting put away for four years and writing your book in Cell Block Eleven. But somehow, in this day and age, I can't see it. I can imagine it - just as I can imagine America being ravaged by computer-generated insects or a Buick saloon cruising through time portals. Can you envisage a 33-year-old winning Wimbledon (as Jaroslav Drobny did), a 44-year-old playing cricket for England (as Wally Hammond did), a 45-year-old winning the world heavyweight title (as George Foreman did), or a 50-year-old playing top-class football (as Stanley Matthews did)? The same parameter shift is happening (belatedly) in bestselling books as happened, decades ago, in sport. This year's Booker was won by a young contender, Yann Martel, half the age (39) of the oldest shortlisted candidate. As elsewhere, the race is increasingly to the young and swift, not the old and canny. This ruthlessness works against the King-sized superseller, which needs up to 40 full-price, full-display weeks to make its numbers.Īt the end of the day, it's down to age. Wal-Mart discounts to the bone and returns books days after delivery. They do not want the same book cover on display day after day. But, unlike the traditional bookshops, Wal-Mart keeps its stocks very shallow. The Big W sells everything under one vast roof - including books. When Wal-Mart moves into town, all the smaller stores (including what used to be called "supermarkets") close down. Havoc, death, destruction, yawn.Ī third explanation for the drooping blockbuster is the Wal-Martisation of America. In Prey (warmed-over Jurassic Park) a hive of computer-generated insects (cyberbugs) escape from a laboratory. With queues for smallpox vaccination, and citizens opening their Xmas (Anthraxmas?) cards, gas masks at the ready, the old stories just don't have the same thrill. America, post 9/11, has a new set of dreams and nightmares. It's all deja lu been there, read that.Īnd, of course, the book world (like other worlds) has changed utterly. So, too, with Turow's and Grisham's legal thrillers. Clancy (with his fantasia of papal assassination) bet the store on John Paul II dying, and the pontiff perversely didn't (despite Cardinal Law's best efforts). ![]() King's latest reads suspiciously like a Christine retread (old cars with strange powers). Like childbearing, delivering blockbusters every year takes it out of you. They want fresher, less formulaic wares such as Alice Sebold's (age 39) saga of youthful drugs, rape, and wretchedness, The Lovely Bones - first novels that come from nowhere. ![]() The fiction-reading public has, meanwhile, got younger. Crichton is 60, King and Clancy 55, Turow 53, Grisham (sprightliest of the bunch) 47. ![]() These authors are all veterans, old hands, a trifle wrinkled. ![]()
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